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by anawitch



Category: RWBY
Genre: Abuse, Child Abuse, Gen, Post-Volume 3 (RWBY)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-04
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-24 14:53:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6157219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anawitch/pseuds/anawitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She would give up myrenaster for one phone call.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home

Weiss knew from a young age that crying would never get her anything, but that didn’t stop the tears from falling the moment she was finally away from him. They shook through her body until she was trembling with sadness, soaking her pillow and aching so profoundly she thought the pain in her heart might end her.

They needed her. Ruby, Blake, Yang - she needed to be with them, to look after them while they recovered, to help them deal with their losses, because who else would do it? Who else could do it as well as her? It had been less than twenty-four hours and already being apart hurt so much, and there was no way to know… did Ruby wake up yet? Were they checking on Yang’s bandages enough? Had Blake stopped crying? She would give up myrenaster for one phone call. 

Outside her room she heard her father speaking low to his assistant. Collecting her had severely troubled his work schedule, he was sure to inform her, and while he was happy to have her home and safe he didn’t have the time to speak to her just yet. Good. She hoped he never did. Her feelings towards her father were always spiteful, but now all she felt was hate; hate for taking her when she could have helped, hate for acting as if he cared, hate for pretending she was free when she knew there were armed guards at the end of every corridor, at the bottom of every window.

She muffled a choking sound with her hand and swallowed it, breathing in through her nose and trying desperately to gain control of herself before he saw. When the door creaked open she moaned in despair; she couldn’t handle talking to him about this, she couldn’t handle a lecture, not now, but the footsteps were heeled, and when she looked around she saw her sister and let out another pitiful sob.

Her expression was steely as always, but Weiss knew Winter well enough to see the pain beneath the façade even with her foggy vision. Primly her elder sister perched on her bed and said nothing, but her she stayed there until the tears finally dried out.

“I shouldn’t be here,” Weiss said finally, and her voice was smaller than she expected, hoarse from her sobs. “They need me. I need them.”

“If there is to be a war, he wants you here beside him.”

Of course he did. Weiss didn’t need to ask what Winter meant by a war; the tension in her tone said it all for her. Cinder’s plan had worked, and if Atlas and Vale were no longer allies… what were the chances of her ever going home to her team?

“Help me,” Weiss begged. “Talk to him. Please.”

She sighed, and they both knew it was hopeless, but Winter wouldn’t say no to the request. Nobody understood what it was like to be trapped there like she did… only Winter was free now, somehow more so in the military than she had ever been in childhood, and Weiss was still only almost free.

“It will… take some time to broach the issue,” Winter said. It was asking so much, but Weiss was out of options. She nodded and fell back against the bed, suddenly exhausted, but when Winter left she found that she couldn’t sleep. She lay in a barely-awake daze staring at the wall and realised that she wouldn’t – couldn’t - until she knew they were okay.

\--

“She won’t eat.”

“I have been through this with the both of them countless times. She is just being stubborn.”

Weiss heard the conversation through the wall with dim interest and closed her eyes, seeing her father and his assistant speaking together in her mind. He was carrying something in his hands – sheets of paper, maybe, or his scroll – and looked at that instead of who he was talking to, too busy for anything to take his full attention.

A third voice spoke.

“Father, with respect, it has been a week. She is not well. General Ironwood has agreed to give her safe passage to-..”

“Safe passage?” her father interrupted. “In a war ship? You have a warped sense of humour.” Weiss imagined him look down at Winter, even though she was not much shorter than him. “Weiss is staying. I have made the arrangements: she can enrol at Atlas Academy as she should have in the first place once the war is over.”

She had cried so much since returning home that the news didn’t even make her blink.

“She does not _want_ to be here.”

“Enough, Winter,” came his firm voice. Winter would stop responding, now. That voice meant nothing but trouble. “I will not have you taint her with your own attention seeking. You have corrupted her enough.”

“Corrupted her!?”

Weiss sat up straight in bed and stared at the door.

“Watching me leave was not what started this. This is not _me._ It’s _you._

Your demands for perfection are impossible. They are exhausting. Every day here she wakes up knowing she will never be enough, that she will never be any more than your puppet. She does not want to live the life that you have chosen for her, just as I did not. You are the one who chased her to Beacon, just as you are the one who chased me to the military, just as you chased mom-..”

The smack reverberated through Weiss’s chest and stopped her heart, and suddenly there was a silence that seemed to stretch for hours. When the voices returned they were too quiet for her to hear from her bed, and if she couldn’t move before she definitely couldn’t now. She shook as if it were her who had been slapped.

Winter slid into the room, and though she stood tall she trembled. Whether it was with rage or distress, it was difficult to tell.

“Winter, I’m so-..”

“Stop,” Winter said. This time she stood at the foot of Weiss’s bed, keeping her distance. An angry red handprint stood stark against the pale skin of her face. “When dinner is brought to you tonight, eat it.”

“But I’m not-..”

“ _Eat it,_ ” she repeated, firmly. Weiss swallowed her words and nodded. Fear must have shown in her eyes, because Winter crossed the distance and hugged Weiss against her chest with a tutting sigh. Close to her ear, now, she whispered.

“The ship will take us tonight. I am not leaving you here with him again.”

Weiss looked at her in awe. Winter let go and stood back, but kept her voice low as she continued:

“You may be safe here. You would not die here, not physically, but I cannot sit back and watch your soul die.”

She was leaving. She would see her team again. She wouldn’t have to go to Atlas Academy, or practice skills she had no interest in, or learn about the company. She was going home. Weiss felt dizzy with happiness for the first time since she had seen her father’s ship.

Winter turned on her heel and walked towards the door.

“Thank you,” Weiss whispered as she left. “I love you.”

She froze, and her hand hovered over the doorknob. It took a moment for her to collect herself, to take a deep breath before she responded:

“I love you too.”

\--  


End file.
